ntire seclusion is neither cheerful nor
salutary at her age. But her person and manners attract attention and
excite curiosity. I am extremely desirous to keep her history secret,
but I already find it difficult to answer questions without resorting
to falsehood, which is a practice exceedingly abhorrent to me, and a
very bad education for her. After this meeting with Mr. Fitzgerald,
I cannot take her to any public place without a constant feeling of
uneasiness. The fact is, I am so unused to intrigues and mysteries,
and I find it so hard to realize that a young girl like her _can_ be
in such a position, that I am bewildered, and need time to settle my
thoughts upon a rational basis."

"Such a responsibility is so new to you, so entirely foreign to your
habits, that it must necessarily be perplexing," replied her visitor.
"I would advise you to go abroad for a while. Mrs. Percival and I
intend to sail for Europe soon, and if you will join us we shall
consider ourselves fortunate."

"I accept the offer thankfully," said the lady. "It will help me out
of a present difficulty in the very way I was wishing for."

When the arrangement was explained to Flora, with a caution not to go
in the streets, or show herself at the windows meanwhile, she made no
objection. But she showed her dimples with a broad smile, as she said,
"It is written in the book of fate, Mamita Lila, 'Always hiding or
running away.'"

CHAPTER XIV.

Alfred R. King, when summoned home to Boston by the illness of his
mother, had, by advice of physicians, immediately accompanied her to
the South of France, and afterward to Egypt. Finding little benefit
from change of climate, and longing for familiar scenes and faces,
she urged her son to return to New England, after a brief sojourn in
Italy. She was destined never again to see the home for which she
yearned. The worn-out garment of her soul was laid away under a
flowery mound in Florence, and her son returned alone. During the two
years thus occupied, communication with the United States had been
much interrupted, and his thoughts had been so absorbed by his dying
mother, that the memory of that bright evening in New Orleans recurred
less frequently than it would otherwise have done. Still, the veiled
picture remained in his soul, making the beauty of all other women
seem dim. As he recrossed the Atlantic, lonely and sad, a radiant
vision of those two sisters sometimes came before his imaginatio